Minimum flowering height?

[pakman91]

Hey all, Pakman here.

Question, what is the shortest height(metric, please) a plant can be put to flower from clone, and at what height would you expect it to finish?

They originated from a bag seed, so the strain is unknown. The bag we got it from was somewhat light green, burnt somewhat harsh and tasted/smelt like a pine tree. I'm not sure if that helps?

Growing in coco/perlite 60/40 or 70/30, quality premix.

Dutchfest? Hydro gro A+B

Currently have some in 30x30mmish pots, they feed off 1/2 strength nutes every 3-5 days as needed, just to give an idea of water requirements.

I have 8x 24w 6500k cfls and an extra two lampholders if need be, 2x 25w 5000k led 2ft battens. I can buy new cfls for flowering, just sticking with veg atm because of not having a suitable flowering area.

The original plan was to get a 1.2x1.2x2m tent and a 600whps for flowering, but things have changed and we may be moving in about 6 months. At the risk of not finding a place that will accommodate that setup, or hopefully one that will accommodate a greater one, we've decided to hold up for a while, no point spending $1000+ to only be able to use it once.

I recently bought a clonetent which measures .75x.5x.6m.

With what I have got, is it possible to flower in this tent?

We hope to be able to harvest/save cash for the move in the mean time.

Thanks for any input.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Cannabis can stretch 2x to 5x during the first 40% of the flowering phase (aka "the stretch"). Indicas will stretch the least, sativas the most, and hybrids fall in between according to their exact genetic makeup. If your clones are rooted and are mature (able to flower, branch growth has switched from side-by-side to staggered), they can be flowered at any time. The clone basically, err... assumes the age of the mother, plus its own age (so to speak).

Your tent is only .6 meters tall? That's... just shy of two feet? Whew, lol. In theory, you could take small clones, root them, place them directly into flower (in two-liter bottles, perhaps), and end up with plants that were less than two feet tall. But you'd need to account for container height. If you plan on placing lights above the plant(s), you'd need space for that plus some air space around it (along with whatever spacing you need to leave between the top of the plant(s) and the light(s)).

Tricky, that.

You'd probably end up needing to employ extreme training methods (and keep on top of things) to deal with your height issue - and that tends to multiply the area that cannabis plants take up.

If you had a very short-flowering, squat-growing indica, you might try a sea of green with as many clones as the space will support, in small containers; the aim being lots of short "bud spears" with their dimensions being matched to the containers' so that space isn't wasted above or below. You could add all the clones at once or a set number each week - dividing the total number of clones by the number of weeks of flower would give you a number that you could add each week, then you would eventually begin harvesting that number each week. If you had a sativa or sativa-leaning hybrid... Well, if it was me, to be honest with you I'd probably resign myself to moving my clothes into the tent and growing cannabis in my closet, lol. But if you absolutely had to grow a plant like that in such a limited space, I'd definitely only grow one. I would use a clone, both so that I could begin with a plant that was as small as possible, yet still able to be flowered at any time, and because sativa clones can flower just a wee bit faster than the seed-grown mother. I would use DWC hydroponics. I'd get the lowest-height sturdy plastic container I could that was as near to the total area of the tent as I could find, and use it for a reservoir, making sure to set things up to add as much DO (dissolved oxygen) as I could, constantly. I'd grow in the Scrog style, placing the screen as low as i could while still being able to completely access the underneath (bearing in mind the fact that sativas can grow like a bad rumor ). Because sativas have longer flowering periods - and, therefore, longer stretch periods - I would make sure not to allow the screen to get too full before I switched to flowering; I would attempt to time things so that I could continue to train under the screen during the first part of the stretch, fill the screen (so that there was a growing tip at every hole), and still have time left in the stretch to allow for some upward (bud) growth.

With both of the above scenarios, I would want to use some kind of flat-panel lighting. If fluorescents, I would go with the longest tubes that would fit in the tent, and either buy a fixture or build one that spaced the bulbs as close together as I could get them, in order to keep my watts per square foot (meter) as high as possible. You could pretty much set such a fixture on top of the screen (not quite, but...) and not have to raise it until the point in flowering when you decided the screen was full enough and to stop training so the tips could grow upwards throughout the remainder of the stretch, then you'd raise it every day (keeping it as close to the plant as you could) until the stretch was over and, again, not have to raise it any more. With care, effort, and good luck (lol), you would end up with a (short) bud growing out of every hole in your screen. These types of lights cannot penetrate into a canopy, and - again, with luck - hopefully, your canopy will be reasonably dense. You don't have any height to speak of, so this method of growing short buds, but as many as will fit in the space, could be a good fit. Still... It'll be tricky. Don't plan on going on vacation for a week (or even a few days) and raising the lights so the plant(s) won't burn while you're gone, because you'd come back to stretched plants and no more headroom, lol.

 

[pakman91]

Thanks for the very informative reply, TorturedSoul.

I have some pots roughly 15cm(6 inches) tall, the LED's are about 4cm(1.5 inches) high, the cfls are roughly the same - 4cm. This takes up a total of 9 inches of height from 24 inches, leaving 15 inches.

So to succeed I'd need to flip them at 3 inches to allow stretch upto say 9 inches, leaving a distance to lights of around 6 inches.

Does this sound alright too you? Assuming the plants triple in size.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Clones don't stretch as much as plants grown from seed do, and my experience with flipping clones that have just shown roots is that they felt a bit underdeveloped. I've grown a few of these now and, at least with the strains I tried, they tend to produce little budsicles about six or 8 inches long. I found that they didn't seem to have enough veg time after the flip to produce decent root systems. I felt like they were never as healthy as they could be. Also I flowered mine in 1 gallon pots and I think the 1 gallon size is too big for this. A solo cup would work better.
You will get a happier plants if you give them a couple weeks to grow some roots before flipping.

Having said all that- in your situation I would do just as TS said. I would find a bigger space. Barring that I would go with a single plant in that space. One healthy plant with a good root system instead of a herd of little ones to watch over.. One plant in one container to water and feed. Simple.

 

[pakman91]

Thanks for the response Weaselcracker.

Unfortunately at this point in time the only other space I could possibly use is not at all light proof, and temperatures fluctuate quite a bit.

I've got 6x fully rooted clones in a 3x3cm square pot which stands roughly 4-5 inches tall. Each plant is between 3-4 inches tall.

Using these pots and some training do you believe anything decent is achievable?

I know there will be a lot of wasted floorspace, but for the sake of at least getting a few harvests done between now and moving time, would it work?

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yeah so you've vegged them a few weeks already? I would switch them to flowering now then. They'll probably grow budsicle type things. Hard to say how tall/long. You say they're in 'a' pot but I assume/hope you mean each one has it's own pot? Either way - 3x3 cm is teeny. Time to repot.
Look into LST. (Low stress training). Drill a few holes around the rim of the pots so you have something to attach to - and pick up a pack or two of pipe cleaners to tie them down and bend them with. The plants are very malleable and you can pretty much wrestle them into whatever shape you want.
Given that they're bag seed - you don't know what you're going to get. A higher chance of hermies, possible males, and possible very stretchy plants.
The last scenario is manageable- the first two, not so much.

 

[TorturedSoul]

To be honest, I wouldn't want to speculate on specifics in your particular situation.

There's a thread about people seeing what they can grow in those red 18-ounce Solo cups, let me search for the link...
The Red Cup!
I suggest you read through that in order to see some examples of what kind of plant sizes people are dealing with.

And here's another one that takes the idea of growing in small Solo cups to the extreme, lol:
World's Smallest Solo Cup Grow

With a little searching, you can probably find other threads that deal with growing cannabis in decidedly restricted root-zone environments (due to severely limited grow space, the wish to restrict plant size for other reasons, or merely for sh!ts and giggles). You might also look through the three journal sub-forums with an eye towards grows that utilize(d) a comparable sized grow space; the Ongoing Journals section so that you can follow along and participate in the discussions, the Completed Journals one so that you can learn about the entire grows from start to finish in a short time (however quickly you can read, lol)... and the Abandoned Journals area so that you can see examples of small-space grows which had to be abandoned (along with, hopefully, the reasons why they were scrapped).

Successfully growing cannabis from start to harvest in a severely limited space is a specialized topic, methinks, and I don't really have any experience with it. I'm generally the kind of person that recommends the grower get as much light as he/she feels comfortable with (, can afford to purchase, can afford to power, is able to deal with the heat produced from, et cetera) and then to set up the size - and shape - of their grow space to accommodate the lighting in such a way that the entire area of said grow space is receiving as close to the optimum levels (for the specific strain(s) if possible, or at least in the general range for cannabis) as is possible and that the light levels are balanced throughout that area (IOW, no dimly lit corners, no shining a significant percentage of the illumination onto two walls whilst not fully illuminating the plants closest to the other two walls due to the shape of the grow space not matching the shape of the light's footprint, etc.). Or, if the grow space has already been built - and its shape & dimensions are set in stone - then sizing one's lights to match... A minimum of 30 watts per square foot of HID lighting for vegetative growth and a minimum of 50 watts per square foot of HID for flowering (with more if possible and, if one is growing sativas, much more ). Up to twice those totals for fluorescents (and maybe a little more than that if using CFLs instead of the older-style long, straight tubes). 35 to 50 watts per square foot (or even more for the cheap generic Chinese products) of LED, depending on the efficiency/intensity and type of technology being used (and, again, with more light for those strains that require it). I like a decent ceiling height because I hate having a sore back, lol, and because it gives me more options in terms of strain selection, lighting selection, and training/growing styles. Plus, heat rises, so if there's a little space above the lights, that's fine with me. So... no tiny grow spaces for me. I do get the feeling that people find it more difficult to deal with heat issues in the smallest spaces, which forces them to use less light than even their small space should have. That, plus the limited option set would tend to have the overall effect of lowering one's production (both in terms of gross yield and in terms of yield per watt (IOW, efficiency takes a hit)). But I could be wrong, I suppose, because I haven't really paid a great deal of attention to others' efforts in such spaces.

I do wish you the best of luck with your grow! It could be a very good idea to start a grow journal. Helpful both to you, in that you can attract people who are interested in that kind of grow and those who have some experience in that regard... and to others who come to 420 Magazine in the future looking for the same answers that you are.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Either way - 3x3 cm is teeny. Time to repot.

Wow, I'll say. I was looking at that and thinking in inches, lol. I was thinking, "Well, I've grown plants at a density of nine per square foot (4" square pots) before, so maybe a 3"x3" one isn't that small." WHOOPS! 3 cm is 1.1811 inches :rolleyes3 .

Given that they're bag seed - you don't know what you're going to get. A higher chance of hermies, possible males, and possible very stretchy plants.

Seems like every bag seed I've ever grown out turned into an oversized high-percentage sativa. And the seeds that came from Mexican, Central, and South America all turned into giants. But, like Fats Waller (RiP) used to sing, "One never knows, do one?"

 

[Weaselcracker]

I've grown a bunch of plants in solo cups and they'll easily grow two feet tall with no signs of ill health. The first time was for a solo cup competition - here. Solo Cup Comp - Bring It!

It was fun and I managed to win plant of the month with one of them. They do fine in those cups, especially in something like your coco medium. Your limiting factor will be the headroom. Might as well do a lot of training and make it work for now. You'll want to expand your space after that.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I've grown a bunch of plants in solo cups and they'll easily grow two feet tall with no signs of ill health.

I recently gave away a bunch of clones that I had rooted in those little six-ounce styrofoam coffee cups and then never repotted. Some of them were easily chest-high, LMFAO (they were either Jack Herer or Kali Mist - how dumb can I get, I failed to label two plants... the two plants that were the only ones in the grow since, IDK, last September or earlier until a few months ago). Not much in the way of branching (some, believe it or not) but fun to look at. I only have two left in those cups, and they're only... IDK, between 3½' and 4½' tall. Yeah... just screwing around in there, I guess. Half tempted to flower them as they are now, except that I'd end up forgetting to water them enough.

BtW, Hey, Weaselcracker! I'm going to hit the button to post this reply and then immediately send you a PM. Won't take a minute to type it....

 

[pakman91]

Yeah they've been vegging a few weeks, sorry my measurements can be a bit off sometimes haha, the pots are closer to 10x10cm, I'll actually measure them soon. And yeah, individual pots.

As far as veg, they don't stretch considerably under their current conditions, I've been vegging a few and playing around with cloning for months and months, just haven't yet flowered.

This may sound like a dumb question, it may look like it too(haha) but let's just say an lst'd clone is 12 inches high, lateral growth would've had it at say 20 inches high.
Would the stretch(lets say 3x) result in a 36inch high plant, or a 60inch high plant?

 

[handjive4mota]

rather bullshit type thread. who cares?? every grow is different, a lot of you people want to quantify and measure every thing.
leave them girls alone(Pink Floyd). There is paying attention and being a helicopter bitch, do not be a helicopter bitch, let it ride.

 

[pakman91]

rather bullshit type thread. who cares?? every grow is different, a lot of you people want to quantify and measure every thing.
leave them girls alone(Pink Floyd). There is paying attention and being a helicopter bitch, do not be a helicopter bitch, let it ride.

I get what you are saying, and agree 99%.

But, this tent is supposed to replace my poor quality grow box, and supply a 1.2x1.2x2m tent with 600w hps with regular clones.

Due to unforseen circumstances we have to move in 6 months, so rather than spending $1200 on something I can't use at the new house, or even worse discovering a house which would accommodate a say $1500 setup far better, I'm looking at ways to be able to get a harvest or two in before moving.

The tent is my most viable option at this point, which is why I'm asking experienced growers their opinions on whether this will work or not, rather than just wasting 2-3 months on a failure that I didn't really know would work anyway.

So in this situation I believe it's worth asking the question.


Also, for anyone just jumping in now, my previous question a couple posts up... Am I completely wrong or will training and lateral growth as a result account for some of the final plant height?

Thanks for the replies everyone, I appreciate all the input.

I'll definitely check out the solo cups, I did try with them a while ago but the drainage I made was poor and so I just transplanted them into pots.

 

[Weaselcracker]

This may sound like a dumb question, it may look like it too(haha) but let's just say an lst'd clone is 12 inches high, lateral growth would've had it at say 20 inches high.
Would the stretch(lets say 3x) result in a 36inch high plant, or a 60inch high plant?

If i understand the question right- the total stretch is just lengthwise. All you're doing is taking vertical growth and bending it horizontal. The plant will try to stretch the same amount whether it's laying flat or pointing straight up. The training involved in trying to make it lay flat might slow it down a little though.

BtW, Hey, Weaselcracker! I'm going to hit the button to post this reply and then immediately send you a PM. Won't take a minute to type it

Sorry I missed that- I had a helicopter to catch.

 

[TorturedSoul]

If i understand the question right- the total stretch is just lengthwise. All you're doing is taking vertical growth and bending it horizontal. The plant will try to stretch the same amount whether it's laying flat or pointing straight up.

Yeah, think of the growth as a light-seeking response. The growth is always going to be vertical / towards the light whenever possible. The grower then pulls it back down (and, presumably, outward). In a nutshell, that's the concept of "Scrog" - every time a growing tip comes up far enough above a hole that it can physically reach a different hole, the grower pulls it back through the inch or so that it had attained, moves it to the more distant hole, and the plant... grows upwards a tiny bit again. Rinse/lather/repeat.

Sorry I missed that- I had a helicopter to catch.

I'm hoping to hop on board a rocket some time this weekend. Old friend from the old days called, asked me if I've had any Oaxacan highlands sativa lately, lol. I said, "No, and I could use some seeds from that bud." ("Sorry, it's sinsemilla.")

 

[pakman91]

Thanks for the replies, sorry I don't think I've asked to question properly.

Lets say we have two identical clones(growth, nutes, enviro etc). Fully rooted they stand 5 inches tall.

Clone1 is allowed to grow untouched, clone2 has training done to lower the height and widen the canopy.

After 1 month of veg, Clone1 is let's say 20 inches tall, clone2 however is only 12 inches tall.

Both are flipped to 12/12 and stretch 3x the original size.

Will clone1 stretch to a total height of 60inches, and clone2 stretch to 36 inches? Or will they both stretch to 60 inches?

In other words, does the stretch go based off actual height, or actual growth? As in, clone2 would have grown to 20inches had it not been trained...

Thanks guys.

 

[Geraldine42]

I would consider sea of green if I were you. That way they will stay short and produce more than 7 grams.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I think they would both stretch about the same total amount assuming that they are both in good health and have a good root systems.

 

[pakman91]

Sea of green was my initial thought, but I'm still trying to work out how small they need to be to flower them in that space.

Weaslecracker, are you saying they should both finish at the same height as one another? Give or take, of course.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I'm a little confused about the question actually and how it applies to your space.
The point of training usually for indoor pot growers is to make plants wider and create a flat canopy to make the most of the lighting situation. Because our lights are generally straight overhead. Outdoors plants can get light from all sides as well as above- but indoors our situation is more limited. So if you're training a plant - especially in a low space unlike yours-you're usually trying to make it wide and low to the ground. During the stretch you'd keep tying limbs down and making the plant wider. You wouldn't just let it run during the stretch.

But to answer the question- a trained plant left to go wild during the stretch should stretch about the same amount as a untrained plant would (everything else being equal). But since it started from a lower height, it's obviously not going to be as tall when it finishes.

If you're really worried about the stretch then put a screen in and make it into a scrog. All that does is give a large number of places to tie to and you can keep tying any limbs down flat on the screen. I haven't found any plants so far that I haven't been able to easily control in a scrog. I've also achieved the same result without the screen- by tying the limbs down to the sides of the pot- but it takes a little more work.